


Apologise (x 5)

by Scarlet_Starlet



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24286459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Starlet/pseuds/Scarlet_Starlet
Summary: Prompt: Five times Arthur said he was sorry, and one time he showed it.
Relationships: Ariadne/Arthur (Inception)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Apologise (x 5)

**Author's Note:**

> This is old work that I'm migrating from Livejournal. I wrote it many years ago during the glory days of Inception fandom (although it might still might be the glory days, I haven't played in this sandpit for a while!).

1.)

Arthur was too much of a gentleman to say so, but it was her fault.

Ariadne distracted him in the dream by kissing him when he least expected it, craning her neck while up on her tippy toes (the man was _tall_ ) and brushing her lips against his. She ran her hands through his hair and across his shoulders before resting them lightly on his chest, smiling against his lips when he made a surprised sound.

He froze for several moments, too shocked to do anything other than stand there. Then, his mouth slid against hers and his hands cradled her head, one thumb brushing her cheek tenderly.

It was a wonderful moment; one that he hadn’t been expecting but was most certainly intending to enjoy.

Neither of them expected projections to attack them. Arthur heard them coming and pushed her behind him protectively. He realised she didn’t understand what was about to happen when she started protesting his abruptness and was about to explain when a bullet tore through his chest.

He took the fall, took the shot for her.

She cried out and tried supporting his weight, but he was too heavy for her petite frame and they slid to the ground.

He died slowly in her arms, blood trickling from his mouth as she cradled him, crying.

“It’s not real,” he managed to choke out.

Then the projections pulled them apart and started torturing them.

Arthur was a seasoned veteran when it came to dream sharing and pain; he knew how to close his mind, how to let the agony wash over him, how to wait to die patiently.

Ariadne didn’t.

Her screams reverberated around the room, in his head. They caused him more anguish than any pain the projections could inflict. She cried and begged and screamed and Arthur was unable to talk, to help her, to provide comfort. He could hear what she said, but he just couldn’t make a sound.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
She was inconsolable when they woke up. Arthur rushed to her side when he became aware of her consciousness like he had the first time they’d met, but she pushed him away and turned, sobbing and retching over the side of the lawn chair.

He dismissed the phantom pain of a bullet wound that wasn’t there. She clutched at her stomach, her chest, her arms, her legs, her head, and her entire body.

“It’s okay, Ariadne,” Arthur said.

Cobb touched her shoulder reassuringly, grimacing in sympathy. She screamed and huddled into a ball. He drew back as if he’d been stung.  
  
“You’re awake now, it’s all right now. It wasn’t real. It's okay,” Arthur repeated, but it didn’t help.

“Fuck,” Eames said at the sight of her when he walked into the workshop sometime later. “What happened?”

“Projections got to me before I could wake her,” Arthur answered tersely, not caring that everyone could tell from his tone that he was blaming himself for the torture she had endured.

“How long, pet?” Eames asked her gently. She just shook her head, lip trembling.

Arthur knew it must have felt like an eternity to her.

“At least two hours,” he said, calculating in his head.

Eames and Cobb had a low conversation in the corner of the room, shooting worried glances at her.

Arthur sat with her quietly and told her about the first time he’d ever met Cobb and Mal, causing her to smile a few times. She started to doze off, which was to be expected considering what she’d been through.

She rested her head on his shoulder. He took it in stride and wrapped an arm around her.

~*~*~

Ariadne woke when Arthur settled her gently into the passenger side seat of his car and buckled her in carefully before getting into the driver’s seat.

“Did you carry me all the way from inside?” she asked, sounding much more like herself.

“Welcome back,” he said softly. “Yes.”

“You could have just woken me up. I’m heavy,” she blushed.

He grinned at her. “You’re as light as a feather.”

“Liar,

“Pocket Venus,”

She just smiled. He smiled, but it faded quickly.

“Ariadne, I am so sorry–”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have–”

“These things happen,” she interrupted. “It wasn’t real,”

He watched her carefully, knowing she could feel the weight of her totem. “No. It wasn’t real.”

“None of it was real,” she repeated. It was almost as if she were trying to convince herself.

They didn’t mention either of kisses they’d shared in dreams. He didn’t kiss her outside her apartment door. She smiled, thanked him, and closed the door.

Outside, he slumped against the door and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Inside, she kicked the wall and blinked back tears.

2.)  
  
When Ariadne walked into the warehouse on Thursday morning, Cobb and Arthur looked stressed. For his part, Eames was half-heartedly searching through a suitcase (Ariadne had seen him search for tea – she knew what he looked like when he was really on the hunt).

“Good morning,” she greeted them brightly and handed out the coffees and tea she’d brought with her.

Eames was the only one who thanked her. Arthur frowned at her and Cobb groaned.

“I forgot about Ariadne,” he admitted to Arthur.

“She doesn’t have to be here. She could take the afternoon off,” Arthur suggested.

Cobb mulled it over.

Ariadne frowned. She'd been banking on the money to pay off her university tuition, and it had taken her forty minutes by train and ten minutes of walking to get to the warehouse. “What’s the matter?”

“Important client meeting this afternoon, love,” Eames answered, balancing his tea in one hand while he continued to dig through his suitcase. “We have to look perfect, apparently.”

“He’s a powerful man.” Arthur frowned. “We certainly can’t wear hideous shirts and scarves from the '60s in a business meeting.”

Eames rolled his eyes at the jab. Ariadne fumed internally.

“We need Ariadne to be here. She’s integral,” Cobb decided. “She’ll just have to go shopping this morning.”

“Shopping for what?”  
  
“In lieu of _everything_... at least a suit,” Arthur answered, gazing at her body appraisingly. She felt naked under his eyes. “There’s not enough time to get one tailored, so you’ll have to buy one off the rack. Get heels and do your hair and makeup, too. You need to look presentable.”

He all but pushed her out the door.

“You tell her that you need her, then you go and cut her down,” she heard Eames complain and felt a little more justified in her resentment.  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
  
Ariadne was a bohemian soul. She shopped for colour and texture and the way that things made her feel. She loved vibrancy, patterns, and soft fabrics. She liked feeling _comfortable_.

Tight dresses and high heels just weren't _her_. And neither was this gleaming, fluorescent boutique shopping alley she'd had to (grudgingly) ask Arthur for a recommendation for. Ariadne didn't shop in places like this.

If Dom hadn't looked half-crazed and said he needed her, she would have called Arthur and told him to go fuck himself. But a suit probably wasn't the worst idea – she couldn't certainly use it again for interviews once she graduated. And if she bought it as part of this job, she'd even be able to claim the expense – it was something she'd heard Eames tease Arthur about.

She struck gold in the fourth store she visited.

“My friends say I should dress more professionally and I need something for an important meeting,” she babbled nervously when the assistant asked her if she needed help.

Ariadne bought the first black dress she'd ever owned and appropriate black heels she could just manage to totter around in. She paid with her credit card, biting her lip while she waited for the transaction to be approved and sighing with relief when it was.

She braided her hair in the well-lit bathroom of the boutique complex and applied newly purchased make up, careful not to spill it on her new clothing.

It seemed that whatever Eames had picked out had been deemed as Not Suitable by Arthur – just as she applied a nude lipstick (seriously, what was the point?), Eames texted her to tell her he was in the complex and he'd pick her up.

When he met her, he looked dashing but clearly uncomfortable in the suit. He stopped fidgeting in order to wolf whistle at her.

“Don’t you look gorgeous?”

“Thanks. You clean up all right, too,” she grinned, because at least she wasn’t the only one who was being forced outside of her comfort zone.

"Don't you worry, love," he said in a conspiratory tone. "I bought the most expensive brand I could find. I'm going to eat so many snacks wearing this blood thing just to watch Arthur have a conniption over crumbs."

How the two of them didn't murder each other, Ariadne would never know.

~*~*~

Her eyes were glassy when she walked out of Cobb’s office, but she wasn’t crying.

She was an adult, for God’s sake, not a little girl, and she wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t show weakness in this male-dominated career. She might have been young, but she was a professional.

“Are you alright?” Yusuf asked from the corner. He had been the only one who wasn’t required to meet the client. She envied him for that, because the client had been particularly loathsome.

"I don’t feel well,” she answered quietly. “I didn’t want to interrupt the meeting. They think I’ve gone for coffee.”

Yusuf was at her side in an instant, pressing his hand against her forehead. “Mmm, you’re warm. Go home. I’ll cover for you.”

“Thank you,” she faked a smile, not looking at his face.

  
~*~*~

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Cobb finally shouted at her the next morning, finishing his tirade. He'd pulled her into the conference room as soon as she'd arrived.

Ariadne looked beyond Dom, through the glass wall of the conference room, to where Arthur was trying his best not to look like he could hear every word. He was clearly uncomfortable but not willing to interfere.

"Do you have anything else you want to say?" she asked.

“It was an important meeting, Ariadne,” Cobb said disapprovingly. “He might not have been the most pleasant man, but he’s very powerful and we need him on board.”

It was the last straw for her.

“If he pinched my backside _one more time_ , I would have shot him in the face,” she said. “Eames was the only one who looked out for me. You two just ignored it.”

“Be reasonable–” Cobb began.

“No!” she screamed. “You don’t get to tell me to be reasonable! I haven’t spent four years and thirty thousand dollars at university, I haven’t slaved over assignments, I haven’t missed my cousin’s wedding just to have some sexist bastard slap my ass and tell me to be a good little girl and go make him a coffee.”

“Sometimes we have to do things we don’t enjoy–” Cobb said weakly, but he looked guilty.

“I quit,” she said and stormed out.

“You didn’t apologise, did you?” she heard Eames ask them unnecessarily as she threw the contents of her desk into a cardboard box. “You utter fuckers.”

~*~*~

It took them several days to break.

She was searching for a job online, feeling a little hopeless about the future and making ends meet, but still righteously angry when the doorbell rang on Wednesday morning.

She opened the door wearing an ex-boyfriend's too-large button-up shirt, slippers, and nothing else, and came face-to-face with Cobb's mutinous face, Arthur's carefully controlled expression (had he checked out her legs? No, she must have imagined it), and Eames rolling his eyes at them.

Dom and Arthur apologised (Arthur more graciously than Dom, no surprises there) while Eames supervised. To their credit, they did appear to be genuinely remorseful. She stared at them disbelievingly and only accepted their request to come back to work when they told her they’d dropped the client and her university debt had been paid off in full.

"Pull that shit again and you'll never see me. That is my one and only warning," she said.

~*~*~

Back at the warehouse, Ariadne set up her desk, smiled at Eames and Yusuf, ignored Cobb and Arthur, and got to work.

“I really am sorry, Ariadne,” Arthur said from behind her, quietly and earnestly.

She thought about the black dress she'd never be able to wear again without thinking of the hurt she'd felt when he hadn't spoken up for her.

“It’s too late to apologise,” she replied, turning to face him for the briefest moment before focussing on her work again.

It took weeks for her to warm to Arthur and Cobb again.

3.)

Ariadne was laughing at a joke Eames had just made, smiling delightedly up at him when Arthur made a disgusted sound and pushed away from his desk.

“I’m going for a walk,” he announced.

She nodded silently – their newfound relationship was one of tense wariness and distrust.

He slammed the door on the way out and Cobb rolled his eyes and followed him.

“I have another funny story,” Eames said, grinning like a shark. “Our point man has the hots for you.”

“What? He doesn’t,”

“He does,” Eames exclaims. “Haven’t you seen the way he gazes at you longingly? And heard the way he sighs because you’re still angry with him? And the way he glares at me like he wants to throw me off of a building?”

“Glares at you…?”

“He thinks we’re secretly dating.”

“Eames, no offense … but you’re really gay. Anyone can tell,”

“None taken, sweetheart,” he laughed, pulling at her scarf. “And that’s what makes it hilarious. It’s as clear as day, but Arthur doesn’t have a clue.”

She looked out the window and saw the point man out in the cold, shoulders hunched miserably.

“I don’t know if I should trust him.”

“That’s what love is,” Eames said gently and seriously, then laughed.

~*~*~

When Arthur retreated from the cold a half-hour later, Ariadne realised why Eames had been quietly snickering to himself.

He toned up the endearments, whispered nonsense in her ear, brushed her cheeks with whiskery kisses, and had poor Arthur seething in jealousy until Eames left early that afternoon, whistling happily on his way out.

Cobb and Yusuf followed not long after, probably sick of the heavy atmosphere and the way Arthur was typing on his keyboard - like he was punishing it.

Arthur slammed the drawers of his shut and swore when he dropped a folder on the ground.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked calmly.

“No,” he snarled before immediately running his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

“It’s okay. I’m off anyway. If you see Eames before me, please tell him I hope his date went well,” she said, carefully gauging his reaction.

“His... date?”

“Mmm, with his new boyfriend,” she answered, trying to sound absentminded as she picked up her bag and covertly watched the lines of misery around his mouth and eyes disappear, his posture straighten, and a smile tug at his lips.

~*~*~

It took three more days before Arthur summoned the nerve to ask her out. She wore professional attire for his benefit, and tried smiling flirtatiously from across the room to spur him on.

If things went the way Ariadne wanted them to, she'd probably be wearing a lot more corporate wear – she was sure Arthur would be worth it ( _down, girl_ , she thought to herself).

She had tottered to her desk in her ridiculous shoes and started going over prints when Arthur came to stand in front of her.

The other three men had gone out for lunch, so it was just the two of them in the warehouse.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me?”

She smiled shyly.

4.)  
  
Ariadne sat in the restaurant Arthur had said he would meet her at for an hour, feeling ridiculous and disillusioned in a green cocktail dress and stupidly high heels, with her hair pulled into a chignon.

She stood calmly at nine, nodded her apologies at the wait staff and went home, falling into bed without having eaten.

~*~*~

Ariadne was perfectly calm when she walked into the workshop on Friday morning.

“How was your night, pet?” Eames asked, taking in her usual skinny jeans, scarf, old t-shirt and cardigan combination with a raised eyebrow.

Some people might have called it petty, but she had no intention of wearing those stupid fucking clothes if she wasn’t even going to get a fucking date out of it, God. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t calm.

“Fine, thank you,” she replied in a controlled voice and slipped behind her desk to prevent herself from strangling their point man. As much as she would have liked to cause him some pain, she was first and foremost determined to prove herself as a professional.

“Oh God,” Arthur said, voice thick with dread. “Yesterday was –”

“Thursday,” she answered, quiet and angry.

Eames looked between them and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You two would be the worst couple ever. You should just give up.”

She glared at him and accidentally broke her pencil in half.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry.” Arthur moaned later, looking thoroughly miserable. She took in the bruises underneath his eyes, the pallor of his skin, and the stress-lines around his eyes and sighed.

“It’s okay,” she said, even though it really wasn’t. The pressure was getting to him, and the job was more important than a date with her.

Apparently.

5.)

Ariadne was scrounging under her desk for a pencil she’d dropped when Arthur and Eames returned from lunch, talking quietly.

“Must have left already –” Eames said, or something similar that. She wasn’t listening, too intent on finding her damn pencil.

“She hates me,” Arthur moaned.

She froze under her desk, because now there was no way she could admit she was there without embarrassing all three of them.

“She doesn’t hate you. I think she likes you,”

Ariadne scowled because he was right, and she didn’t want him to be. Arthur was certainly handsome and intelligent and capable, but he was also hard to read, unreachable, and aloof. Arthur was like fire; he was beautiful and fascinating, but also temperamental, dangerous and potentially deadly. Ariadne knew better than to touch fire.

“Then why doesn’t she talk to me or smile at me?”

“Because you’re a twat,” Eames said bluntly. “You stood her up, you let Cobb yell at her, and you don’t appreciate her.”

"I do,” Arthur insisted. “I’m just …”

“Shit at relationships? A failure when it comes to women? More like a robot than a person?” Eames provided.

“I just haven’t been on my game,” he mumbled.

“That’s what I just said.”

“It’s just - she makes me nervous, all right?”

Eames snorted. “Arthur, you are a trained assassin, point man and adult of six feet tall. Every time I’ve seen you outside of work, you’ve had a gorgeous lady on your arm.” Ariadne became aware of her hands fisted into balls, nails digging painfully into her palms. “And you’re scared of this tiny little girl?”

“You’re not listening to me! She’s different.” Arthur exclaimed. She imagined he was probably running his hands through his hair in frustration, but she couldn’t be sure. “I love her.”

Ariadne couldn’t restrain the noise of shock that escaped from her.

“Oh fuck,” Arthur moaned. “Tell me she’s not under the desk.”

She bit her lip and peeked over the edge of her desk. “Um. Have you guys seen my pencil?”

Eames clutched his stomach and laughed until he cried. “Worst couple ever.”

~*~*~

“I apologise for talking about you behind your back,” Arthur said stiffly as they walked to his car so he could drop her at home that afternoon, as per their usual routine (well, the routine they'd fallen back into after she'd realised not letting him drive her was more of a punishment for herself than him).

“It’s okay,” she reassured him, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

He looked uncomfortable and depressed, as if he’d lost all hope. Her heart ached for him.

“Did you mean it?” She couldn’t help but ask.

He flushed and wouldn’t meet her eyes. They stood awkwardly outside of his car in the cold.

“Arthur?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

Ariadne made a happy noise and stepped closer, wrapping her arms around him.

He exhaled and squeezed her gently. “Eames is right. I’d be the worst boyfriend ever.”

“Why don’t you prove him wrong?” she asked, giggling when he smiled down at her.

1.)

Contrary to popular belief, Arthur wasn’t the worst boyfriend ever. He was protective, kind, generous, attentive and so affectionate that Eames said it made him feel sick.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t have his faults. He tried not to show it, but she could see that he was anxious and nervous around her, afraid of fucking things up. They were becoming more comfortable around each other and moving forward, but there was just the right amount of awkward.

They were in Mombasa in a meeting when a disgruntled ex-client called Ariadne a whore. She had been floating on cloud nine because she’d been remembering that morning, when Arthur had accidentally called her ‘baby’, and the unexpected insult from the client had shocked her into silence.

But Arthur … Arthur’s expression was positively murderous when he shot the man’s kneecaps.

“This is not how I fucking wanted to spend my time here,” Eames complained much later as they laid low in their hotel rooms in order to avoid the repercussions of Arthur’s actions.

Ariadne had been resting her head on Arthur’s lap as they curled together on their couch in their hotel room’s lounge area. His fingers were gently tangled in her hair as he absently played with the silky strands and read Richard Siken aloud for her benefit.

Or at least he had been until Eames interrupted him.

“It’s like Cobol engineering all over again.” Cobb agreed.

“Sorry,” Arthur said. “It would have been much simpler if I just killed him.”

Arthur had the brilliant mind of a point man, the skills of a ninja assassin, the heart of a lion, and the soul of a poet. What he lacked was the ability to walk away from a debate about work (this debate focussing primarily on how much the client’s grudge would affect their reputation), so even when Ariadne yawned meaningfully, he continued to argue his point.

She pouted and pleaded exhaustion, not surprised when the three men barely acknowledged her goodnight.

~*~*~

Arthur stayed a respectable amount of time longer but still copped a ribbing when he left.

He smiled fondly as he opened the hotel door and found her pretending to sleep, huddled in bed. He slid between the sheets and put his arm around her shoulder.

She melted into his embrace and turned so she was lying flush against him.

“I’m s –” he started, but she smiled and pressed a finger to his lips to silence him.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“For everything,” he said, looking pained.

“It’s not an –”

“I can’t promise it will be perfect,” he rushed earnestly. “But I love you and I’ll never let you go and I promise I will keep you safe here with me and–”

“I have faith in you.” Ariadne laughed at him and then pulled him in so she could kiss him.


End file.
